BusinessObjects and SAP Part 4

[IngoH]

In case you missed the first parts of my blog series I have included the links to them here:

BusinessObjects and SAP Part I

BusinessObjects and SAP Part 2

BusinessObjects and SAP Part 3

In my previous blogs I did focus on how Crystal Reports can leverage BW queries as a datasource.

In this blog I will explain how Crystal Reports is able to leverage data from an R/3 system.

Crystal Reports has several options to connect to an R/3 system.

 

 Crystal Reports is able to connect to:

• InfoSets
• InfoSet Queries
• ABAP Functions
• Tables (via Open SQL)

     

When Crystal Reports is connecting to R/3 system via the InfoSet connectivity, the user needs first to decide if the report should leverage an InfoSet or an InfoSet query.

In the second step the user needs to decide if the report should be based on a local InfoSet / InfoSet query or a Global InfoSet / InfoSet query.

After connecting to the InfoSet, Crystal Reports is offering all available fields in the field explorer and the user can now use all available fields to build the report.

The second option is to connect to the R/3 system via the OpenSQL interface.

 

The first step in Crystal Reports is to select the datasource.

• The Data Dictionary allows Crystal Reports to retrieve all tables from the R/3 system.
• The second option is to retrieve a list of ABAP Functions
• The third option is to leverage a ABAP data cluster in Crystal Reports

   

When using the Data Dictionary option, Crystal Reports is showing a list of tables from the underlying R/3 system and the user can use the tables for reporting.

Here Crystal Reports is showing a list of tables from the sales and distribution area.

Crystal Reports is using the OpenSQL interface (not a direct connection to the database) to retrieve the data.

 

In addition to a native connectivity of Crystal Reports on top of the SAP R/3 system, BusinessObjects is also offering a solution with Data Integrator, where the data is being extracted into a data mart.

BusinessObjects has created a large set of pre-build Data Marts (called Rapid Marts) which allow a very quick implementation of a data mart solution on top of SAP R/3.

I hope this short description gave you a good overview how you can use Crystal Reports in combination with SAP R/3.